Motion Sickness – I call itFPS – False Poisoning Syndrome

When the inner ear is constantly subjected to motion, the mind misinterprets the situation to be that the body has been poisoned and must get rid of the poison and stop the victim from ingesting (eating) any more of what it thinks is tainted foods. The victim does not feel like doing anything.

Sound familiar?

Warning: FPS – False Poisoning Syndrome is just my opinion and is NOT to be taken as medical fact. Being a deep thinker and an incurable optimist, I have come to some conclusions on "Motion sickness" or "Seasickness," since it can have such terrible consequences for any vacation.

If you are uncomfortable with new medical idea than skip this and go on to a more useful page on my website. But if you want your trips to be a little better, this information might help. It sure makes my trips easier for me to go on

I havenever been seasick, for which I am truly grateful. No motion sickness. No airsickness. I just never went there.

I have been on many airplanes, boats, ships, ferries, car, trucks, buses, you name it.

I was a student pilot for many years, flying an old Cessna 172 high wing single engine plane. I even landed it at night just on my battery with a broken generator. No fun.

I've taken horse, motorcycle and car rides. I've hitchhiked for tens of thousands of miles on six continents. No problem.

I've felt nauseated at times and dearly wish the symptoms of motion sickness would go away.

The real test of not getting "seasick" for me came when I worked on a commercial fishing boat trawling north of Kodiak Island in Alaska. In the four weeks on the boat,I faced 26-foot high seas for days on end. It took a lot of will power not to get sick. But I did it. I got my sea legs, and I was fine.

I asked the captain if he ever got sick. He said no. He never gets seasick. The trick, he said, is not to go there. Once you're there, there's no turning back. He mentioned that in the old days of wood ships there were people who were seasick every waking moment for three years. That's insane.

So preventing seasickness simply means don't get seasick. Same thing for motion sickness

How do we do that?

First we need to know why people get sick.

To explain this requires a little understanding of the human ear.

I believe its function is threefold:

The first function of human ear is to hear, to convert sound into sensations that the mind interprets as sounds. The science is a lot more than I can go into here. Basically, sound enters the ear and vibrates hairs in the inner ear that are extremely sensitive. Nerves pick up on these vibrations and send the signal to the brain.

The second function is to maintain balance. It does this with the same basic structure with three loops all perpendicular to each other. Different sensitive hairs sense the position of the head and allow the body to stay upright and balance itself.

The third function of the ear is to chemically detect poisons in the blood stream, by using the inner ear as a big poison detector. If ANYTHING seems out of place for too long, the mind interprets it as the body being poisoned. It does everything it can to get rid of the poison and stops the person from ingesting (eating) any more.

Now let's put it all together to find out what motion sickness really is:

Too much motion back and forth over-stimulates the part of the ear that senses balance. This falsely sets off the "I am poisoned" alarm. The victim feels nausea and then throws up everything. The eyes get blurry and victim can't seem to move. The body has done its duty, it sensed a problem, and did something about it.

It's all part of the body survival system:

You put your hand any flame, the body involuntarily jerks back the hand.

You hear a bang, and you duck.

You feel yourself falling forward; you put out your arms to stop the fall.

You feed nauseated and sick to your stomach; you throw up and crawl into bed.

In the old days

before long distance travel, the human body was not subject to constant and prolonged pitching and twisting motions.

But it was subject to poor sanitation and unhealthy storage and handling of food. People ate rotten or diseased food. Food Poisoning was a huge problem. The answers where better sanitation and spices to mask nasty tasting food.

But if a person did not detect bad food, he died. And that was that.

Now in modern times we have the blessings of good sanitation and healthy handling and cooking of foods.

However, we have fast moving vehicles such as cars, airplanes, and ship that pick and yaw and make us feel terrible.

It's not the motions that cause a sickness, but by the over- stimulation of the body, which misinterprets it as food poisoning.

I believe motion sickness has been misdiagnosed. It's really what I call FPS – False Poisoning Syndrome. What does this all mean?

When traveling on moving vehicles take a preventative medicine (A.K.A. Seasick or Motion Sickness Pills, see your doctor) to mask or prevent the over-stimulus.

Try eating ginger, in powder or capsule form. Some tests show it to be effective at preventing many stomach upsets. Drinking a ginger ale soda helped me once through stomach flu.

One of the easiest ways to get away from the feeling of Motion Sickness on a cruise ship is to go into the pool. The water in the pool rocks around you with the ship leaving you without the rocking motion. It becomes more like splashing.

You can also do what the Captain and I found out, "Just don't go there." Tell yourself, "I have not been poisoned, is just a pitching ship."

And repeat it over and over for your next three year voyage.

Good Luck.

Similarly, I believe dry swallowing causes hiccups.

Warning: The idea that "dry swallowing causes hiccups" is only my opinion and not to be taken as medical fact.

In the old days, people would eat without drinking water to wash the food down.

This can easily happen when they're hunting and gathering.

They would be so hungry that they would eat too quickly, once they get the food. The food gets stuck in the throat leading to a life and death situation. (Remember you only die once.)

Those that started to hiccup could dislodge the food and live to hunt another day. Getting a drink before swallowing can prevent choking. (Note: There might a lot of other thing that can trigger hiccups, but I think dry swallowing is the main cause.)